


Birdland

by livereats



Category: Real Person Fiction
Genre: American History, Angst, Awkward People, Biopic, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Infidelity, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 01:55:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13753800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livereats/pseuds/livereats
Summary: Eleanor and Lorena - between the lines.





	1. August, 1943.

**Author's Note:**

> I started this little series awhile ago and just thought to put it up.
> 
> Special thanks to Helen, Noor, and Kat for giving me advice.

Franklin prodded his dinner, which was formed tonight of broiled sweetbreads, which sat on an exceptionally unexceptional mushroom risotto. It was the sixth consecutive day of sweetbreads at Casa Blanca, and certainly, he thought, time for a change. He pushed his plate to the side, and set to work with his pen. It was a good pen, with a brass nib. His wife’s gift. At sunset, when the light outside Franklin’s window had mellowed into a lazy shade of orange, a knock sounded at his door. Franklin looked up, and saw that his wife was looking back, a stack of letters on her arm.  


She was always writing letters or columns in her office, but the mud on her boots said otherwise. Her hair was buoyant, and scattered before her blue eyes in charming waves.  


She had been out, she said, and it was time for her to draft Tuesday’s column.  


“Out?” asked Franklin. “With whom?”  


“Lorena,” she said. “For lunch. She asked to come with me to the islands.”  


“And what did you say?”  


“No, of course.”  


“So you really are going. Alone.”  


“Yes.” Eleanor peered out the window and looked a lot younger. The last sliver of sun was dipping beneath the trees. Her skin glowed. Within five minutes or so, the light would be gone.


	2. Late January, 1933.

Lorena pressed her nails into Eleanor’s arm.  


“You’re hurting me,” said Eleanor, but her sides hurt more from laughter. They were a little bit drunk.  


“Don’t we have an understanding?” asked Lorena in the minor key. Her eyes surprised Eleanor in their bleary intensity. A storm had been roused within them. It was the sort of expression that frightened the men at the AP who did not know her, and could persuade those that did.  


“Are you being serious?” asked Eleanor, who was neither a man nor working at the AP. “Are we going to be serious now?” She tucked Lorena’s hair behind her ear, beaming. Their faces were close. So close, Eleanor could smell the bourbon on Lorena’s breath and the stain of cigarettes which clung to her her hair and her clothes.  


“I love you,” Lorena blurted out.  


Eleanor grew dizzy. The sun over Hyde Park was brilliant today. It made her feel slow and stupid.  


“Why, Hick,” she said, “I love you too.” Her words were wobblier than she would have liked. “Now, would you stop pressing your nails into my arm?”  


“Not like that,” said Lorena, her brow knitting together, but she did as she was told. Her nails left crescents all over Eleanor’s arm, colored like apricots. She rubbed her fingers over them until they disappeared. “I love you,” she said, “but not as friends do.”  


“Oh,” said Eleanor. Her head spun some more. “Well, I knew that already,” she said.  


They sat outside for a long time. Eleanor enjoyed herself immensely. She put her head on Lorena’s trouser-clad legs, and felt the wool press against her cheek. The grasses were bending to the breeze. In the distance, she heard a flock of birds rise up through the trees and glanced up just in time to watch them fly away. Her stomach fluttered. She touched herself there, and remembered how wonderfully awful being pregnant felt. She watched Lorena fidget and become more self-conscious by the second.  


“You’re burning,” said Eleanor, getting up. “Let’s go inside.” There were grass stains on her dress.  


Lorena scowled. “Won’t you say anything?”  


“You’re a child,” said Eleanor. “Come inside.”  


“I’d better go.”  


“That’s nonsense. Don’t you remember? I’m the First Lady now. So do as I say.” She smiled crookedly. “Come inside.”

Mrs. Nesbitt greeted them as they came to the back door. She was an austere-looking lady; she wore a long, black dress, and a pair of glasses at the top of her nose, which wrinkled whenever she saw something that she did not like. It wrinkled now, briefly, at the flask on Lorena’s hip.  


Lorena grimaced.  


“Henrietta,” said Eleanor, “would you kindly send the lemon water and some ice to the room?” She led Lorena up the stairs. The bedroom at Val Kill might have been a substandard space for any other First Lady, but Eleanor did not liken to any other, a fact that she was made keenly aware of. Her bed was yellow and wine-colored, a twin without its other, low and small and lonesome. It creaked as the two women sat on it at extreme ends. Mrs. Nesbitt came in with the water, but without the ice or the lemon. No one said anything. Mrs. Nesbitt checked her watch.  


“You have another appointment at two,” she said. Then she left.  


Eleanor felt she could breathe, but only just. Her heart had ridden up her throat, and vibrated on her tongue. Her cheeks burned with pleasure.  


Lorena leaned forward, her fingers anxiously moving along the duvets. “What do you want me to do?”  


“I don’t know,” stammered Eleanor. She knew very well.  


Her hand settled on Lorena’s shoulder, and slid towards her neck. Lorena’s flesh was cool on her fingertips. She pressed Lorena softly there, pressed her until the two of them lay like a white and blue horizon over the bed. She gave Lorena a kiss, first on the nose, the cheeks, then the mouth. Her mouth was soft. Eleanor’s heart beat faster. How could it, she wondered, for something so small?  


Lorena’s mouth spread wider, and in the next moment, Eleanor forgot all of her worries.  


“Oh,” she said softly. “My heart.”

They made love like virgins.

Afterwards, they lay in bed. Lorena spoke up.  


“That was terrible,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She flung her crumpled trousers to the floor.  


“No,” insisted Eleanor, “It was lovely.” Her eyes were closed. Her limbs were felled at her sides. The hot little button that Lorena had so graciously entertained had stopped quivering. She was pleasantly saturated. She lay down naked next to her friend, and they wrapped their arms about each other. They were awkward people, and Eleanor was happy.  


Her thoughts drifted. She vaguely recalled her wedding night, how afraid Franklin had been, and how Eleanor, resigned yet dutiful, had forced herself to give up her shame in layers. Since she loved him. Since he did not deserve to feel unwanted. It had never occurred to Eleanor to ask herself what she deserved, not until much later. If Lorena could give her seed as Franklin had then, Eleanor dreamed of it now, stirring inside her, making beautiful babies with healthy bodies and dark brown hair and eyes.  


The sheets were still nippy, for the two of them had not lasted long. The cotton enclosed Eleanor’s nose like a pool of cold water. Lorena peered at her, lifting the covers from their heads. Eleanor looked away, feeling shy. Sun peeked through the window, blinding her.  


“What are you smiling at?”  


Eleanor pressed her knees together. “What do you think if you and I had a girl?” she asked.  


Lorena snorted. “Another time, another world.”  


“Humor me,” said Eleanor, already thoroughly humored. “What would she look like?”  


“She?” Lorena gave her a long look. “I’d want a boy.”  


“No, you don’t.”  


“Blue eyes,” Lorena said at last. “Like most Roosevelts. Tall like you, I think.” She smirked to herself, buttoned Eleanor’s shirt. “A big smile with lots of crooked teeth.”  


They laughed - Eleanor, to tears. She sighed. “You make me so happy.”  


“Because you’ve just been fucked.”  


“Don’t be vulgar.”  


“We were only just being vulgar together!”

“Hick,” said Eleanor, when they were dressed. “Would you come to work for Harry Hopkins?”  


“What?”  


“Would you be an investigator? Here in Washington?”


	3. April, 1960.

“Well, what is it?” asked William. His usual twinkle had dissipated, alerting Lorena to the seriousness of their discussion. They found themselves in the garden, and had just finished lunch. Empty mimosa glasses lined the white outdoor table.  


“David says it’s aplastic anemia,” said Eleanor, as if she were commenting on the fine weather they were having (It was offensively sunny.)  


“I’m not a doctor,” said William, “but that really doesn’t sound good.” He sucked on his teeth. They were pearly white, and made a clear whistle. He reminded Lorena a bit of every movie star she’d ever seen.  


“It’s nothing.” Eleanor ran a finger up and down the stem of her glass.  


“Nothing,” repeated Lorena. She looked up from the newspaper’s front page, which was about the recent earthquake. “Hemorrhaging to death is nothing.”  


“We all get old. I’m too busy to be worried about it.” Eleanor wet her lips. “Besides.” She looked down at her empty glass. “David will take care of me. He knows what to do, and with today’s technology....”  


William filled her glass. “That’s not a guarantee, my darling.”  


“If it fails, I’d like a simple ceremony.”  


He trembled with laughter.  


“A pine coffin, some pine boughs....” She sighed. “Don’t patronize me, William. I mean it when I say it ought to be small and quiet. Peaceful—”  


“My dear,” said William. He took her hand into his own. “I loathe to be the one to say it, but I don’t think you’re being realistic. As things are, you are not an individual that will be ‘let go’ quietly.”  


“That’s what I’m afraid of.”  


“Stop talking about that or I’ll leave,” barked Lorena. Her paper hit the sunny luncheon table with a flap. “The both of you. You’re horrible people.”


	4. March, 1905.

Ethel’s hand ran through her cousin’s frizzy hair. The girl was crying, and Ethel could feel the tears soaking through her dress and into her lap.  


“Sit up,” said Ethel, “Granny, please.”  


“Don’t call me that,” snapped Eleanor. She sat up.  


“Sorry,” said Ethel hastily.  


“Mama called me that. And I never liked it then and I never like it now, and it makes me feel so ugly.” Hiccup. “She thought I was ugly.” Hiccup. “I am ugly,” Eleanor sobbed.  


____

“Are not.”  


“Am. And I’ll never keep him. How can I? He’s too attractive!” Hiccup.  


Ethel gave her cousin a handkerchief, and looked thoughtful. She touched her cousin’s hair some more. It was thin and golden, like her own hair. The two had matching eyes as well, soft blue with flecks of white, grey, and green. Aunty Bye said their eyes reminded her of oysters.  


“I really don’t think you ought to be worried,” said Ethel. “He loves you,” She tugged at Eleanor’s hands. “And so does my Pa,” she added, reassuringly. “He adores you, and don't tell her so, but sometimes I think Papa adores you more than Alice. Always tells her to be more like you.”  


Hiccup, said Eleanor. Her eyes were swollen, and no longer looked like oysters. They were as pink as foxgloves.  


“You’re going to be so happy,” said Ethel, though she was thirteen and knew nothing about anything. “You’ll see.”


	5. February, 1952.

"There are no birds," said Eleanor. She'd only half meant to say it aloud. 

"What?" called Lorena, still climbing the garden steps. 

"I said, there are no birds." 

Lorena stopped. They listened. The trees rustled, and their boughs cracked. In the distance, Eleanor could hear the rumbling of automobiles. Further on, the sound of an approaching storm. But there were no birds. 

"Not a peep," said Lorena. "I hadn't even noticed." 

"Neither had I ‘til now. Must be the storm.” 

"It’s not. They’re spraying DDT all over the neighborhood, hadn’t you heard?” 

“No.” Eleanor offered Lorena a hand. 

"Put that down," snapped Lorena. "I'm a decade younger than you." 

“But not as spry." 

“Pardon?” 

“Nothing.” 

Lorena scowled. Eleanor smiled placidly. There was a respectable distance between them today, even without the extra company. There had been a respectable distance for many years, and it had only gotten broader. 

“Are you,” said Eleanor, “are you coming to the dinner tonight?” 

“To see Alice Longworth?” asked Lorena. “Ha. Ha.” 

“She’s an intelligent woman. And so are you. We would all do better to get along with one another.” 

“Please, darling, save it. I’ve read enough of your ‘It’s up to the women’ optimism. I’m completely certain that you hate her, anyway. And if I’m wrong, at least she is averse to you.” 

Eleanor stopped short and turned around. “Please come, Hick. You’re my dearest friend.” 

“I have work.” 

“You’re a writer.” 

Lorena bristled. “And?” 

“And nothing. You’re your own boss. I’d just like to see you more often.” 

“You’d like a lot of things.” Lorena fished a cigarette out of her pocket, and lit it up. They approached a bench. Eleanor sat down. 

“I’d like to see you more often,” she repeated. 

A puff of smoke rose from the corner of Lorena’s mouth. It was smooth and sweet under Eleanor’s nose. Her stomach fluttered. 

Love made her sad.


	6. October, 1942.

“Why are they always asking me these stupid questions?” Lyudmila fumed. “Why does anyone care if my uniform makes me look fat?”  


“The press is like that with women. Especially women like you.”  


“Like us.”  


Eleanor took a deep breath. “I think you did fine out there.” They were in the closet. It smelled of mothballs. Eleanor picked out a dress for Lyudmila. It was purple and had violets. “Your English is perfect, and you’re a more than decent speaker.”  


“I don’t want to wear this to the conferences anymore,” said Lyudmila. She was unbuttoning her coat. Her fingers trembled.  


“You have all the reason to be proud,” said Eleanor as it hit the ground. “Don’t pay them any attention.”  


Lyudmila tore off her shirt. Her stance was terse as she looked away.  


“Wait.” Eleanor grasped Lyudmila’s shoulder. “May I?”  


Lyudmila and Eleanor became silent. The latter observed: Beneath the dim light, Lyudmila’s yellow back had been twisted and warped, reshaped by shrapnel wounds and healed to the texture of wax.  


“What have they done to you?” whispered Eleanor.  


“I don’t know,” said Lyudmila. Her eyes were wet. “I don’t know.”


	7. September, 1918.

Eleanor was effectively humiliated. She saw in Sarah Delano’s silver set her own disfigured appearance. She saw her lopsided smile—the same one she might recognize in her wedding photo—a wavering curve of teeth and gum. She saw her undefined chin and her reddening ears. Saw her strange, jutting lower lip—magnified by the warped silver. She couldn’t breathe, or talk. Her lungs had frozen and burned at once within her frame.  


For her own part, Sarah Delano couldn’t seem to breathe either. The blood had drained completely from her face, leaving behind a shell of a woman that Eleanor was certain would soon be filled by rage.  


“Divorce?” asked Sarah Delano. “Never mind, don’t say anything. I don’t want to hear it again.”  


Eleanor tried to speak. Her voice emerged, steadier than she’d expected. “I’d like to give your son the freedom that he needs,” her voice said.  


“Freedom.” Sarah Delano’s eyes rolled into her head. “The freedom to destroy his own career?” She sneered at Franklin. He met his mother’s gaze.  


He had been extraordinarily calm as of late. Even as Eleanor had produced Lucy Mercer’s love letters from his suitcase, and asked a series of simple question that begged simple answers, Eleanor had only briefly sensed his own shock at what seemed to be her inevitable discovery. So he, caught up in shock, had not raised his voice. And Eleanor, exhausted by grief and her own sense of failure, had not raised hers.  


“Sarah,” said Eleanor. “We are looking to get a divorce.”  


“No Roosevelt,” spat Sarah Delano, “has ever divorced. Roosevelts do not do divorce, my dear.” She laughed. It was a horselike laugh. “And you, Anna, in case you have forgotten, are a Roosevelt. That is the final word. Do you really wish so badly to throw our family in the dirt?”  


Eleanor rose in silence.  


“Well, mother,” said Franklin sensibly. “I think we had better go.”  


“I’ve never agreed more.”  


The door to the parlor creaked open. It was little Elliott.  


“Please stop being angry,” said Elliott boldly.  


“We’re not being angry,” his father replied. “Just chewing the rag. Run along.”  


He did run along. He was easily convinced. Eleanor followed. Her walk was swift. She had to leave, had to run, to get away from it all. She walked, calmly, past the door and out through the front lobby. The fancy carpets and floral wallpapers, the odor of Sarah, fell upon Eleanor’s neck like a noose. Her stare was wide.  


Elliott did not take notice of his mother’s panic; his attention had been drawn back to his train set, sprawled across the carpet floor. He went on making train sounds. Meanwhile, his mother, Eleanor, opened the front door, and her awkward gait gave way to a stumble, and then to a run. There was to be no liberation from her binds of matrimony after all. She was trapped, she realized. Her lungs were plunged with cool autumn air, and on she kept going. Towards the orchards, and the deciduous trees. Her vision blurred. Hot, fat tears rolled down her cheeks and grew cold. Still she ran, and soon she found herself on the wooded trail behind the house, wheezing over her knees.  


She could not be left alone. It dawned on her in that moment that she would, perhaps for as long as she lived, be cursed to suffer her thoughts in the company of others. Through the trees she could hear her husband, ever the diplomat, approaching on the path. She could hear his stride. She knew it as a distinguished step, far too confident, she believed, for someone of his age or current circumstances. A sparrow flickered through the brush. As her husband came from the same brush, his hair slicked against his forehead, Eleanor envied the bird.  


“I want to be alone,” she told him.  


His arms stretched out.  


“Don’t touch me.” She pushed at his hands.  


“Eleanor, I’m sorry. Please understand me.”  


“You disgust me,” she said flatly. “There’s nothing to understand.”  


“I only want to live amicably.”


	8. Early March, 1933.

A stack of papers hit the table.  


“This is the speech,” said Eleanor.  


Lorena looked up blankly. “The speech?” she asked.  


“For the inauguration.”  


“The inauguration,” said Lorena. “You mean—” She frowned. “Are you sure? Are you asking me to read it?”  


Eleanor blinked. “As opposed to eating it? Certainly. Though it would be preferred if you didn’t bring this back to the AP.” An understatement. “If that’s too much to ask....” She picked up the papers awkwardly. Everything she did was awkward. Lorena adored her for it.  


Lorena sat up at once. “No. No, no, of course not.”  


“Would you like me to read it to you?”  


Lorena fumbled for a lighter. “Please.” She crossed her legs, and leaned over the desk. Her eyes prickled with life. She lit a cigarette.  


When Eleanor had finished, Lorena was on a second cigarette. Her hands were clammy and her lips felt unbearably dry.  


“Brava,” she whispered. “Did you help with the writing?”  


“Yes.”  


“You should have been a journalist,” Then, before Eleanor could deny it for the sake of modesty, Lorena said, “I brought something for you.”  


Eleanor was bemused.  


From her pocket, Lorena withdrew a little box. “Here.” She set it in the palm of Eleanor’s hand. It was dome-like, on the top, with a worn and leathery skin in sky blues.  


Eleanor swallowed. She knew very well what kind of gift lay in it. “I can’t take this.”  


“You haven’t even seen it, how would you know?”  


Eleanor opened the box with care. Its lid curved away from her. Inside lay a silver band, crested by a single sapphire droplet. A little gasp passed through Eleanor’s lips.  


“Hick,” she breathed. “It’s lovely.” She pressed the pad of her fingers against the stone. “But I can’t take it.”  


“Why not?” Lorena prodded her friend eagerly. “It’s not that special. I got it for nothing. It doesn’t even suit me.”  


Eleanor closed the box. “Hick, no,” she smiled. “It’s too lovely.”  


“You’re lovely,” said Hick. “Wear it. Please?”  


“Oh, alright.”


	9. August, 1943.

The sands of Bora-Bora were as white as its clouds, and the water was the clearest that Eleanor could ever have imagined. The boys who played on the sand came in varying shades of color. Eleanor observed them from afar, though she felt out of place in doing so. The Major, Major Safford, had not known what to do with her in the absence of the Colonel, and so Eleanor, feeling somewhat useless, was left in the company of a young man called Owens as she  toured the grounds.  


“Are they not segregated?” she asked.  


“The boys?” asked Owens. He swelled with pride. “No ma’am. Same quarters, same mess halls. There was issue at first, mind.”  


“And now?  


“Some, but not much. Everything takes time.”  


She nodded, and looked on a little longer. She’d have to tell Lorena. She thought of how to begin the letter that she likely wouldn’t have the time to write.  


She gathered her fingers at her mouth, and hungered.  


A soft warble sounded in her ear, and she turned her head. In the other direction were a number of tall trees. They seemed out of place, being so large and rooted in nothing but sand. Eleanor glimpsed a bird come down from the highest boughs. It descended to the beach and skittered across sea foam. Its feathers came in the most vibrant of colors. Blue and olive and orange lined its sides, and on its head crowned like any queen with a cap of violet.  


“Oh,” said Eleanor. “What’s that bird over there?”  


Owens was beside himself. “That’s a fruit dove.”  


The dove hopped closer, warbling some more. Its yellow eyes peered at Eleanor.  


“It’s beautiful,” she said.  


“Would you like to hold one?”


	10. November, 1962.

Outside of Lorena’s window in the passenger seat, a man holding up a sign in the crowd had a resilient set of eyes. They were so firm in their hatred that Lorena could have almost admired them. In the next moment, he was overturned as a group of coppers overtook him. He struggled, but the sign tilted, sunk into the crowd, and disappeared.  


“How horrible!” whispered Jackie. Their car pushed down the street.  


“If no one hates you,” said Lorena, “you don’t stand for anything. Franklin told me that once.”  


Jackie looked aghast. “But you’d think that people—they’d find a more appropriate time for it!”  


Lorena chuckled darkly. “She did loathe a crowd.” Jackie was young and attractive, like Eleanor had once been. Lorena glanced at the press car, half expecting to be spied on by the photographer. There was only one photographer. Every wish of Eleanor’s—the pine branches, a short guest list, and a modest ceremony—had been ignored save for the limited press. The photographer was young, too, Lenora saw, but his attention was on the Presidential car.


	11. September, 1962.

“Stop,” Eleanor begged. She lay on the operating table, legs apart. Her legs were skinnier than the last time, and so were her hands - beyond Lorena’s recognition. These foreign hands held Lorena’s own in a deathly grip.  


Dr. David Gurewitsch complied.  


“It’s over,” he said, “it’s nearly over.” From between Eleanor’s legs he removed a plastic instrument as long as Lorena’s forearm, and a little blade shaped like a loop. These things were dropped in a bloody tray. They rested, apathetically silver, on uterine membrane. Dr. Gurewitsch’s gloves came off with a snap. “It’s over dear,” he said. It was probably meant to be reassuring.  


Eleanor’s breaths were quick and faint. She looked at him warily. There were tears streaming from her face, sweat from her pores.  


“I don’t want to do that again,” she said quietly. She was trembling.  


“She’s delirious,” said Dr. Gurewitsch to Lorena. “But a little rest, and she’ll be fine. She might have the chills, same as last time. Just keep her warm and fed.” He began to gather his things. “I’ll send one of my nurses in for clean up. We’ll move her to the bedroom. She needs rest, or she might get a little hysterical.”  


“No need,” said Lorena. “We have a nurse. Thank you, we’ll take it from here.”  


“Oh, I insist!”  


Eleanor shook her head violently. “Thank you, David, but—”  


“No,” said Lorena to Dr. Gurewitsch. “We can manage fine on our own.”  


“Ah, very well.” And with that, Dr. Gurewitsch gathered his things, and began to wash. When he left, Eleanor began to sob. Her cries were long, the kind that went on in circles. They were loud at first, and descended into mute.  


“I’m so cold,” she said when she had finished. Lorena helped her off the table, pulling her gown down so that it covered her knees. Their walk to the bedroom was painful, and slow. Eleanor could not seem to find her footing, and so she leaned on Lorena. 

She was as light as a cloud.  


“Would you like to lay with me awhile?” she asked. “If you’re not busy—”  


“Yes, alright.” Lorena helped her into the sheets, and sat besides her. Eleanor tugged her down. She put her arms carefully around Lorena’s body.  


“I’m sorry,” said Eleanor.  


“There is nothing to be sorry for.”

#### Fin.

#### 


End file.
